eco-friendly Archives - The Natural Wedding Company

Blog: eco-friendly

Charlie

Rustic eco-chic nautical ‘tying the knot’ save the dates and invitations with hessian, lace and twine

Charlie

Nautical tying the knot save the dates

Some of my favourite emails are from brides/couples who have been inspired by the stationery I made for my own wedding – both our save the dates and our invitations. Rachel was one of those brides who got in touch to share photos of what they created and I particularly loved hers because her and her husband-to-be Lee are sailors – so the ‘tying the knot’ version of our save the dates couldn’t be more appropriate.

It is so exciting to hear that couples all over the world have been inspired by the design I created for our save the dates, and it’s pretty satisfying when emails pop into my inbox with photos attached of what everybody’s been busy creating.

>> View Rachel and Lee’s autumn lake house wedding here <<

Nautical graphics for tying the knot wedding invitations

Rachel asked her friend and designer Anne Trencher to design her a few graphics for her wedding stationery, and to choose fonts for them to use – and don’t they look beautiful!

In addition to her save the dates, Rachel also emailed me photos of her wedding stationery – an elegant design with rustic elements of hessian, lace and twine incorporated.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Fern’s ‘how to’ guide for the pretty envelopes she made for her bird and wildflower inspired wedding stationery

Charlie

I have just the loveliest post today from TNWC Real Bride Fern, who has not only made the most heavenly bird and wildflower inspired wedding stationery (and with my favourite brown craft card featuring!), but she has put together an easy-to-follow ‘how to’ guide for how she made the pretty envelopes. Plus she’s also shared details of how she created her different wedding stationery items.

I just know you are going to love this wedding stationery and it’s beautiful little details. If you are on the hunt for eco-friendly materials to make items for your wedding, do check out our DIY Resources section of the directory for a great selection of businesses that we love.

>> View Fern and Dominic’s woodland bird and country flower inspired wedding here <<

How to guide for pretty envelopes

It is always lovely to receive special parcels and post by mail, and wedding invitations can tell you so much about a wedding. Most of the weddings we have been to, couples have handmade their invitations and I never considered doing my invites any other way, but I really wanted my wedding invitations to have a wow factor as soon as they land through the letter box. So it was clear very quickly that I was going to make my envelopes as well.

I have included a ‘how to’ guide for making envelopes below, but I will tell you about my other stationary first.

DIY Floral Envelopes

Full ‘how to’ guide below!

Invitations, save the dates and RSVPs

I designed all the stationary myself in Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Word, inspired by my finds on Pinterest. As I had decided that my envelopes would hold lots of colour it meant that I could keep my invitations more simple.

The fonts were Segeo Script used for our names on the save the dates and the rest of stationary we only used Traditional Arabic but varied use in all capitals or italics. The save the dates I made in Publisher by using the layout guides to divide the page into 8. I did for the RSVPs in Word; it is do-able but a lot fiddlier. I printed them on A4 and then cut them up with a guillotine.

The card for the invitations I found in a local shop with 10 brown kraft and 10 white sheets in. The design of my invites was dictated by this and its size. These were designed in Microsoft Word by customising the page size, even the map on the details.

We decided to trim all the corners to tie in with the envelopes, hole punch and tie together with ribbon. I then also made an afternoon invitation in the same way by customising the page size to A5 and then putting amended details inside. I printed everything at home on my own printer. It has cost around £35 for everything, not including postage, but I still have things left over for other projects.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Miriam’s sharing details of the wildflower and sweet bee elements of her natural wedding

Charlie

It’s been a little quiet on the blog the past couple of weeks as I’ve been away on holiday with my little family to France.

We’re getting stuck back in with a lovely bee related blog post from TNWC Real Bride Miriam – it’s so great to hear how Miriam and John are incorporating meaningful elements into their that have such importance to the both of them.

Over to Miriam to tell you more…

Bee Happy – Love is Sweet

The natural world is very important to both John and I, and we hope to capture the magic of the great outdoors for our wedding guests. This concept fits in perfectly with our wish for an eco wedding and a 1920s style, when overflowing bouquets of locally grown flowers were abundant, as discussed in my last blog post.

We have tried our best to sneak beautiful British nature into every aspect of our Big Day, with heady scents and dazzling colour enveloping our guests and transporting them to our own idea of paradise.

Our first exciting wedding job was to create our “Save the date” cards, inspired by Charlie’s now infamous design that inspired the tie-the-knot version. In the place of brown card we used beautiful seeded paper by Wildflower Favours. This not only looks and feels beautiful with a gorgeous weighty quality, but planted in some damp soil allows our guests to grow some of their very own beautiful wild flowers.

Lauren

Rustic floral stationery from Sarah Wants inspired by The Blue Carrot’s cutting garden in high summer

Lauren

I can’t think of a nicer outing than a visit to a working cutting garden, full of British blooms – choosing the flowers was definitely my favourite part of wedding planning! I remember visiting a local grower on several occasions and seeing little seedlings flourish into gorgeous wedding-worthy flowers was quite a privilege.

There are some wonderful florists who grow their own on the directory and if you’re lucky, you may even be invited to visit their cutting garden as part of your consultation.

When Charlie was planning the TNWC South West Roadtrip back last summer, scheduling a visit to meet Suzanne of The Blue Carrot in Cornwall was high on her priority list. You can read all about what she got up tohere.

On the day of her trip, Charlie was also joined by Sarah from Sarah Wants, an award winning wedding stationery designer and self-confessed country bumpkin who today shares with us the idyllic visit which inspired a new collection. Plus there’s an exclusive discount for TNWC readers!

Over to Sarah…

On a day of sunshine and blue skies, I met Charlie and Suzanne for a lovely lunch at the Hidden Hut just above the beach in Porthcurnick. Afterwards, I was very privileged to visit Suzanne’s beautiful walled cutting garden which was such a treat, it felt like a little hidden secret!

Charlie

A guided tour of what’s on The Natural Wedding Company website for all new brides-to-be

Charlie

I’m a bit late to the game when it comes to wishing you all a very Happy New Year, but a huge warm welcome to the blog to all new and existing brides-to-be and couples planning their weddings – I am so pleased to have you here!

The last 4 months of 2013 for me were completely chaotic after my first baby arrived at the end of August. For any other mummy’s out there you will know how you have no idea beforehand just how much your life will change. Trying to go from ‘me’ to ‘mummy’ as well as running a small business has been challenging, to say the least.

I have a folder stuffed full of the most beautiful real weddings to share with you all as we head into the spring, full of lots of ideas that I’m sure will provide you with some inspiration for your own wedding days. I thought I’d give you a little guided tour of what’s already in the blog archives for you to get stuck into, and if you find it’s ‘you’ then I hope you’ll check back for all the new content coming soon.

The Directory

One of the most important parts of The Natural Wedding Company website is our Directory. It’s stuffed full of some fabulous wedding suppliers who can help to make your wedding day dreams a reality. It’s a wedding directory with a difference though, because all the businesses we work with have underlying eco or ethical principles by which their run.

TNWC Real Brides

Last year we followed the journey of six lovely ‘Real Brides’ who each shared their wonderful plans for their individual weddings. Due to my little one throwing my life out at the end of the summer, I am still catching up with these lovely ladies (who are all now married!). You can read all about their wedding plans on the TNWC Real Brides feature, and coming soon we’ll be featuring some of their weddings.

Become a TNWC Real Bride

Are you getting married in 2014 or 2015? Would you like to share your wedding planning adventure with our readers? If so, you might like to apply to become one of our next TNWC Real Brides – full details here.

Real Weddings

If you are looking for inspiration from real weddings, we have a lovely selection in the Real Weddings category. I loved the wild and seasonal flowers at Chloe’s wedding, the handmade decor and picnic feast from Holly’s wedding, the autumnal touches at Laura’s barn wedding, and the stunning yurt from Jessica’s magical woodland wedding. Do go explore the Real Weddings for tons of real inspiration.

Seasonal Inspiration

Here at The Natural Wedding Company one of the most important things to us is being seasonal – whether that’s seasonal flowers, seasonal food, or simply taking inspiration from the season in which you are getting married. So we have a category completely dedicated to Seasonal Ideas.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides Married! Caroline’s back to tell us all about her laid back eco-friendly farm wedding

Charlie

We’ve had a little break from our TNWC Real Brides but we’re back today with the lovely Caroline who got married back in May. Along with her now husband Gareth, they planned a beautiful and laid back wedding on their farm in Nottinghamshire. It has been a long time coming but I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading about her day and soon I hope to share her official wedding photos.

Over to Caroline…

Wow – has it really been 6 months since our wedding day! I really can’t quite believe how much time has flown, and in some ways, our day seems like a lifetime ago, but in others it feels like yesterday!

I know everyone says that your wedding day is the best day of your life, but it really, really is! We had the most magical day right from the second we woke up and it wasn’t raining (hooray!!) until we finally stopped dancing at 2am, and were whisked away to a secret location for our first night as Mr and Mrs Stafford.

The days leading up to the wedding were heaps of fun and not nearly as stressful as I had feared they might be! I left my little shop in the capable hands of mum and my now mother-in-law and had the whole week to get things ready.

In the months before our big day, apart from cleaning the barn (which to be fair was a fairly big job!!) Gareth had a pretty easy ride of it, but in the last week, bless him, I don’t think he managed to get much sleep! 400 metres of bunting was hung, along with 400 metres of fairy lights and about 100 paper pom poms and he spent most days up on the roof of the barn trying to repair a few leaky spots (the forecast for our wedding day was looking pretty dismal) and around all of this he had 500 cows to milk every day!

The day before the wedding was full on from the crack of dawn – Karen from Darby and Joan arrived at 8am to help start dressing the barn, and within an hour the transformation was already looking pretty special. The only word to describe Karen was ‘amazing.’

Izzy

‘Grow the Love’ with these beautiful ideas for incorporating living flowers and plants into your wedding from Wedding in a Teacup

Izzy

Today Hester from Wedding in a Teacup tells us about how to use living potted plants and greenery in weddings, rather than cut flowers. With some super helpful tips, it’s a must-read for any brides-to-be looking for quirky eco-chic ideas.

Over to Hester…

We love the idea of living flowers and greenery at a wedding. They look natural and informal and are a great way to add practical decoration, but more than that – there’s something about having something living on your day that is so wholly positive!

We like tables named after love-in-the-mist or sage, with pots and gardeners labels to mark them; tiny flower pots doubling as place markers and favours (check out our personalised labels created with these in mind); and an apple crate of herbs or flowers as a luscious table plan holder.

Charlie

Everything you wanted to ask a wedding photographer but were afraid to ask – a guest post from Bohemian Weddings

Charlie

Today we have a guest blog post from Michael and Andrea of Bohemian Weddings, one of our recommended wedding photographers, who have tips and advice on what to ask your wedding photographer to make sure you get the perfect photographer and feel for your wedding day.

Over to Michael and Andrea from Bohemian Weddings…

It may sound obvious but one of the most important things to us as wedding photographers is our relationship with our couples. The reason for this is simple, if we have a good relationship the couple are relaxed, we are relaxed and this really really shows in every photograph we take.

If you have just started your search for your perfect wedding photographer this is an exciting time as there are so many talented people out there who are amazing to work with. But it is important to note that the wedding industry like any other does also have its undesirables and unlike big corporate companies there is no law to enforce vetting of small self-employed photographers…it’s down to you folks!

To help you make the right choice we are going to guide you through what to expect based on questions we receive from our couples.

Charlie

A fabulous 20% discount on all wedding stationery collections from Paper Themes including chalkboard inspired invites

Charlie

For any of you brides- and grooms-to-be who are on the hunt for your wedding stationery then today I have an exclusive offer to share with you from one of our recommended suppliers, Paper Themes.

Paper Themes are offering our readers a fabulous 20% discount on all their wedding stationery, which includes wedding invitations, evening invitations, order of service, thank you cards, RSVPs, and place cards.

I particularly like these chalkboard style invitations…

Mike from Paper Themes told me a little bit more about what they do and offer: “We offer a collection of traditional, modern and contemporary wedding invitations, all of which can be fully personalised to include the details of your big day. All our invitations are made to order in the UK to the highest standards using only the highest quality materials, delivered to your door in a beautiful presentation box complete with complimentary envelopes.”

Charlie

Luxury yurt honeymoons and hen parties with a woodfired hot tub at Secret Cloud House Holidays in the Peak District

Charlie

When I was planning my own honeymoon I looked for places and pictures that inspired me – I wanted to take one look and think, “that’s what I want to do” or “that’s where I want to be.” That beautiful nighttime picture above of one of the honeymoon yurts at Secret Cloud House Holidays does that for me.

Secret Cloud House Holidays have a lovely selection of luxury yurts, including a brand new wooden yurt, situated in the rolling countryside of the Peak District. Their yurts are available for both honeymoons and hen parties, and there’s even a woodfired hot tub with some of the loveliest views that a hot tub could have!

A Secret Cloud House Honeymoon

At Secret Cloud House Holidays there is a choice of three yurts and a bell tent that you can choose from as your romantic bolthole. New for 2013 is Bilberry Lodge, a Scandinavian inspired wooden yurt, filled with rustic furniture, a log burning range cooker, and a cosy double bed. It is also available to book all year round so perfect for a cosy winter honeymoon.

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